September 23, 2008

What is often overlooked is the fact that most Afrikaners are not descended from the Boers hence the distinction between Boer & Afrikaner is a valid / poignant & relevant distinction. The Afrikaners -as a macro group- were not the successors of the Boers contrary to common interpretation as the Boers were & are a minority within the Afrikaner designation - a designation which relates mainly to the descendents of the Afrikaans speakers from the Western Cape who were formerly known as the Cape Dutch - but due to the Afrikaner appropriation of the Boers' history- many people erroneously think that the Afrikaners were a product of the Boers but Boer self determination & traditions were supplanted & discarded by the rise of the Cape based Afrikaners & their political outlook. The Boer people did not consent to the their usurpation as the Boers were left impoverished after the Anglo-Boer War whereupon they were left looking for work in the cities & were susceptible to the Cape based Afrikaner intellectuals who began to co-opt them within a political framework most notably under the rubric of Afrikaner Nationalism in which Boer aspirations were hijacked & had to submit to the political agenda as directed by the Cape based Afrikaners & particularly their Broederbond which was the driving force behind Afrikaner Nationalism & the National Party which later won power.

There were notable distinctions in the past. The Boers were often not formally educated while the Cape Dutch often were. The Boers were pastoral while the Cape Dutch were often urbane. The Boers were anti Colonial & valued independence while the Cape Dutch were often indifferent or pro Colonial. The Boers developed their own dialect of Afrikaans which historians classified as Eastern Border Afrikaans after the Cape frontier where the Boers developed.

The Boers developed into a culture / people long before the Cape Dutch descended Cape based Afrikaners came along a decided that they were a people called Afrikaners who would later co-opt the Boers to a certain extent within a political context. The Boers have been overshadowed by the Afrikaners for the past 100 years due to the fact that the Cape Dutch descended Afrikaners inherited the macro State of South Africa as created by the British marginalizing the Boer people in the process due to their smaller numbers. The Boers are obscured by the fact that they are often represented by Afrikaners & their agendas therefore the Boers are often not represented by Boers or as Boer people due to the erroneous Afrikaner claim over all of the White Afrikaans speaking peoples culminating in the Afrikaner appropriation of Boer heritage which stemmed from political developments during the 1930s. Afrikaner organizations even attempt to prevent Boers from congregating at or inheriting their own cultural monuments. The Boers therefore have not only been colonized by the British in the past but are in fact colonized also by the Afrikaners as well.

There were a number of Boers who resisted the Afrikaner agenda mainly in the form of opting for secession & or the restoration of the old Boer Republics but they were often labeled as or overshadowed by the purported Right Wing.

The Boers have not had a significant voice in public policy as a political entity ever since the early 20th cent when they were outmaneuvered by the Afrikaner Nationalist movement which hijacked their aspirations & tethered them to the larger non-Boer descended White Afrikaans population.

This post will present articles & excerpted text noting & documenting this recognition as made by an eclectic range of personalities from journalists / authors to professors.

The following are noted documented differences between the Afrikaner & the Boer.

Bang bang – you’re dead.

Yolandi Groenewald counts the casualties at last week’s Boerevolk reenactment of the battle of Amajuba

Can all the English please die?" the Boer general asks as the English prepare to hike up the mountain from their camp. A lone Union Jack waves solemnly over the camp while a sea of Vierkleure (the old ZAR flag) decorates the hilltop. The British are outnumbered and the English commander just smiles and nods his head as a rendition of the famous De la Rey tune, sung by a Boere knaap, thunders over speakers.

Watching over the surrealistic scene is a bunch of British tourists -- and members of the Boerevolk. The scene takes place at Amajuba mountain, just 10km outside Volkrust on the border of Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal.

A little more than 127 years ago, the battle of Amajuba was forever written into the history books by a small Boer army overcoming the might of the Victorian army. From generation to generation, proud Afrikaners have told their children how they defeated the English that day and won the first Anglo-Boer War, killing 92 Englishmen and only suffering one casualty themselves.

Now, every year in February, a few hundred people gather at Amajuba mountain to celebrate the battle. This year the Dundee Die Hards, South Africa’s only permanent battle reenactment team staged a battle with Boer troops, made up with commando members from Lydenburg and Pretoria.

But, since 2000, the cultural celebration has become more than just the remembrance of a battle. Bit by bit, it has acquired a political taste as the people who gathered distanced themselves more and more from Afrikaners and reclaimed what they deemed a forgotten identity. They are the Boerevolk.

Over the past week, the Boer commandos trekked all the way from the north of Mpumalanga to the Amajuba camp on horseback, carrying the Vierkleur and other Boerevolk flags in their wake and sleeping on farms.

First, the Victorian army soldiers, dressed in their blood-red uniforms, marched up the hill to the sound of Scottish music. Then the Boer soldiers started creeping up the mountain, their khaki uniforms blending in perfectly with the veld. Just like their foolish ancestors, the Die Hards fired in unison at the Boere. In contrast, the Boere fired when needed and slowly picked off the English in their sitting-duck uniforms.

As the last English soldier was shot, the Boer general raised the flag and shouted in Afrikaans: “South Africa for the white man, and the British can come too, because we are all in this together.” The British tourists, of course, did not understand a word.

One of the Boere-leaders is medical doctor Lets Pretorius, an accused in the Boeremag trial. Pretorius is quick to point out that he is not an Afrikaner, but a Boer.

“The fire of the Boerevolk burns within me. You might be poor, but if you feel the fire of being a Boer patriot, you will have wealth no one can take away from you,” he says fiercely. “It is the feeling of when you listen to De la Rey, something stirs inside that says this is my destiny.”

Pretorius, who is also the founder of new right-wing organisation or “Boer party” the Boerevolk Freedom Foundation, believes the Afrikaner oppressed the Boer nation as well and robbed them of their proud heritage.

“The Boerevolk never oppressed anyone,” he says. “We might have benefited from apartheid, but we were never the people who governed this country and made all those mistakes. Those were the Afrikaners.

“When diamonds and gold were discovered in the old ZAR republic, lots of these Afrikaners from the Cape, who never participated in the war, came up to the old republic to find their fortune. But what they didn’t bargain on was being called up for military service. Sadly, these people were the first to be turncoats, Hanskakies, verraaiers [traitors]. They absconded at the first opportunity.”

When the war ended, Pretorius says, these turncoats also shared in its spoils. They weren’t impoverished while the Boer soldiers who returned home had nothing left.

“These people were so impoverished, they were unable to participate in the politics of the day successfully and when the union of South Africa was formed in 1910, the Afrikaners from the Cape received most of the power.”

In 1914, when Boere rebels turned against the Jan Smuts government and refused to fight in World War I, they were mistakenly labelled as Afrikaner rebels, Pretorius says.

He says the Boerevolk was further sidelined during the Hertzog administration. But, in 1938, the big Groot Trek celebrations took place at the Voortrekker Monument and Boer patriotism took hold of the volk.

“But Afrikaners like DF Malan hijacked the Boer patriotism and used it to establish Afrikaner nationalism. With one shot, the Boerevolk was robbed of their identity.”

Pretorius says the Ossewa Brandwag that was established shortly afterward, just before World War II broke out, was again Boerevolk identity coming to the fore. But after Malan took control in 1948, it was nationalist ideals all the way. But, he says, since the Eighties, Boere have been rediscovering their identity and their sense of where they belong in the country -- even more so since 1994.

Just as the last pegs of the Die Hards’ English tents were packed away, the Boerevolk gathered. Boere-sport was scheduled for the afternoon, but the real sports took place in the meeting hall where heated discussions about the future of the Boerevolk overshadowed any game of tug of war.

In the corner, an amused Boer smiled before sharing a joke during a break in proceedings: “You know what they said about two Boers who landed on an island. They started two churches and three political parties. But that is our little volk for you.”

this came to be the major assertion of Afrikaner nationalists in later generations. F. van Jaarsveld challenged this idea in the 1960s in The Awakening of Afrikaner Nationalism; he was roundly denounced for this heresy and there were demands that he be fired from his job in the Univ. of Potchefstroom for Christian National Education.

- he argued that a sense of ‘national identity’ was very little or not at all developed; Trekboers certainly recognised the differences in language, religion, etc. between themselves and the British;

- they had certainly developed a way-of-life and a set of values that were distinctive, but they were also significantly different from people of Dutch descent in the western province areas of the Cape. The latter regarded the Trekboers as rather wild, semi-barbarous frontiersmen and the sense of common identity was limited and incomplete; the westerners followed the Trek with interest and probably with a good deal of sympathy, but they certainly did not see the trekkers as the saviours of some mystical ‘nation’.

Having been falsley accused by media of unbecoming conduct, intollerance and many other unflattering traits for many years, we Boer people have develloped a fair degree of aversion towards the general media. The Boervolk has been unfairley associated with the worst that political partys, political organisations and the Afrikaner, which is totaly a different species, can offer.

These early Dutch farmers were joined by other Europeans and their populations grew. The Dutch East India Company imported slaves from Angola, Mozambique, Madagascar and other parts of the Dutch Empire to work on large plantations close to Cape Town. The semi nomadic Dutch farmers expanded their settlement further from the Cape and came into conflict over land with local African populations. Their contact with the local Dutch government became more and more tenuous and most of them lived hard rural lives, moving farmsteads frequently, and quite independent of government and education. By 1745 they were known as Trekboers, which means "wandering farmers," a term which was later shortened to Boers. They were unaware of the changing politics in Europe.

TRP host Frank: Now can you tell our audience please the difference between a Boer & an Afrikaner.

Theuns Cloete of Boervolk Radio: Let me put it to you this way: In the 1800s there were 3 groups of White people basically in the southern tip of Africa. And all historians all over the world & even people in the Cape British administrators etc. were writing & you can go & look & they were writing & they wrote about the Cape Dutch who were staying mainly in the southern part of the Cape. And then they were talking about the British those British & the British settlers that came in after 1820. And then they were talking about the Boers the Boer Nation. And the Boers sort of moved from the north east Cape into the Boer Republics. So throughout history there was talk of 3 different nations. The Cape Dutch / the British / & the Boers. Now today a lot of people are saying no there is no such thing as a Boer. We have radio stations right wing radio stations in South Africa that are saying not saying right wing but so called - I would rather say so called conservative radio stations that are propagating the idea of the Afrikaner & using the term - the terminology Boer now & then to sort of pacify or to draw more people on the right towards them so that they can sort of gather votes or people & funds & what have you. And so it's actually a farce because today when you ask people what happened to the Cape Dutch. Where are they? Where have they gone? Did they become like the dinosaurs? Just wiped out. Did some meteorite hit the Cape province & destroy them? Where did these Afrikaners come from? You know. What happened to the Boers? They cant answer you. You know because the Boers are there. The Cape Dutch have disappeared. Although they say the Afrikaners are there. Which means the Boers have disappeared and the Cape Dutch have disappeared. So somehow the two became "one". They never became one as a nation. Never at all. They became one as a myth of the politicians to form a new nation. As Milner said: to destroy the Boers there is only one way. Do not ever try to go to war with them again. Britain will lose. Because Britain was nearly bankrupted at the end of the Anglo-Boer War. It was the most expensive war they ever fought. And Milner said "the only way to destroy the Boers is to destroy their identity". And that's exactly what they did the politicians. They removed our identity from our souls from our nation. And they started calling us Afrikaners in our schools / education systems in our churches and you name it. People started calling themselves Afrikaners. And today a lot of them still don't realize that they're actually Boers because of the propaganda. So that is the main thing.

All the farms in the Transvaal. On these farms. All these farmers that are being killed. They are not all Boers. Sorry they are not all Boers. Some of them are our worst enemies. They hate us they deny us our independence. They do not like us. They never liked us. They always voted yes for this no for that. They have always voted against us.

The Cape Dutch or the Afrikaner in the Cape. They have never ever had a struggle for freedom for independence. Never. It was the Boers that had it. And the Boers came & started the Boer Republics. They lived there peacefully. When the war came - the Anglo-Boer War. Thousands of people in the Cape - the Cape Dutch helped the British against the Boers. So they were our enemy. We can not stand with our enemy & call them together. They are our enemy tomorrow. They say: "you can't really fight this you can't really do that." you know. We got to make up our minds & decide we want to do this we want to go & do that we want our country back. We can not let them negotiate you know. We can't let them negotiate for us because we will loose. We will loose everything. It's a very difficult situation. To take back South Africa is totally ludicrous in today's world. If a third world war breaks out then by all means nobody will have a chance against the Boers because nobody in Europe or America will lift a finger of whatever we do down here because they will be fighting each other shooting with atomic weapons & you name it. They will not have a minute - they will not have a second to worry about what's happening in the rest of Africa. But at the moment everybody talking about retaking the whole of South Africa they are nuts. Like the HNP. The Herstigte National Party. They're nuts. There's a saying going around amongst some of the right wing people in Southern Africa. The only time the Boer Nation really will be saved is when those that are trying or those leaders - or those who believe they are leaders who are trying to save us today are actually dead. Only then will we be able to be saved. We will get rid of all of these old ideas & old stigmas then the Boer Nation will sit up say wow let's rethink everything. That's where I am coming from.

Now I today say that it is pay back time for the Cape Dutch. Because the Cape Dutch are the people who helped the British kill half of our children up to 1902. The Cape Dutch assisted the British in all of their atrocities or most of the atrocities during the war right through the 3 years war of the Boer War. They are the people that are getting payback. We are also suffering from it. But we are not suffering as much as what they are suffering. Because they can not handle it. It is not a good thing. But we can handle it a lot better. We are not liberal like them we know were we are heading. We got to stand together. We will loose some people. But only until the Boer Nation stands up. No other nation with us as a new nation.

From: Theuns Cloete third interview with the Right Perspective Program.

When I founded the Boerestaat Party in 1986, few people thought of the idea. Today, the majority of the Boervolk support this claim. Even the Afrikaners are now supporting the idea of a geographical area of some sort.

From: Fred Rundle interview of Robert van Tonder.

There has always been a vast difference between the "trek-Boers", "Voortrekkers", "grensboere" and the so called Afrikaners - who were the elitist collaborators with the British at the Cape, and who also collaborated on the British side to help defeat the independent Boer Republics. After the feat of the Boer Republics, its voters - who had always been known as Boers everywhere in the world - suddenly lost their identity because the elitist Afrikaners who started running things on behalf of the British, insisted that everybody be called "Afrikaner" and that everybody should be "reconciled."

Strangely back then, people who looked down on the defeated Boers were referred to in the news media such as The Star of Johannesburg as "racists" who should make an "effort at reconciliation". However most of the "reconciliation" came from the side of the defeated Boers who had to find a livelihood as working-class workers in the mines and factories of the cities. They were forced to relinquish their identity indeed as the Afrikaners of today are now being forced to start referring to themselves as "Afrikaanses" - people who speak Afrikaans, a term which was thought up by Mrs Elna Boesak.

I have tried to explore this subject on Censorbugbear. msn.groups.com/censorbugbear

These people have had so many different handles over the past 350 years that it's hard to keep track - and now they are being given another name, namely "Afrikaanses".

That particular latest handle was thought up by Mrs Elna Boesak and other like-minded people - and refers to all the people in South Africa who speak Afrikaans i.e. also Afrikaans-speaking people of colour.

President Mbeki meanwhile prefers to refer to everybody with a paler skin than his own with the racist nomer of "whites" - which he often uses as an insult during parliamentary debates.

Small wonder these people are confused about their own identity! A "trekBoer", a "grensBoer", a "Voortrekker" and a "Boer" all refer to exactly the same people who had founded and supported the Independent Boer Republics of Natalia, the Orange Free State and the Transvaal (ZAR) and who were independent citizens in their own democratic republics for about fifty years before the British destroyed them in their ethnic-cleansing campaign.

History records that the British, the Dutch, the Germans, the French, the Americans and indeed many other foreign governments during those years invariably referred to the voters of these republics as "Boers." After they were defeated, they suddenly weren't allowed to call themselves Boers any longer by the British victors -- and the elitists Afrikaans-speaking collaborators who had worked with the British to defeat them and who had always referred to themselves as "Afrikaners" - after the language they spoke -- then started calling the former, defeated voters of the Boer Republics "Afrikaners."

One can generally still identify people who call themselves Boers these days as those Afrikaans-speaking paler-skinned people in South Africa who are mainly descended from working-class Afrikaans-speakers; many of those were mineworkers and technical workers at the former State-owned companies such as Telkom, Sasol etc. It's actually amazing how many of these people still privately refer to themselves as Boers even though they are being derided and sneered at from all sides.

Pertaining to Afrikaan. This word is used in DUTCH to denote someone from Afrika. The very earliest Cape of Good Hope residents after 1652 who started using the Afrikaans language in books and newspapers referred to themselves as "Afrikaanders' and this referred to both whites and mixed-race people. They did this to differentiate themselves from the higher-classes who spoke and wrote only what was referred to as 'high-Dutch" and looked down their noses at people who spoke Afrikaans. The word Afrikaander in fact was 'invented' by these very first Afrikaans-language writers who were muslim slave-descendants and who translated texts from the Q'uran in Afrikaans. The very first book ever published in Afrikaans therefore was the Q'uran. These people themselves referred to themselves as "Afrikaanders". This later became "Afrikaners" and does still refer to Afrikaans-speakers to this day - and does not indicate their race.

However the Boers who trekked away into the hinterland, never referred to themselves as "Afrikaners" even though they accepted that the spoke "Afrikaans", they continued to read the Bible in high-Dutch at church services. It's all rather confusing but it has to do with the fact that the Afrikaanders at the Cape and the Boers have different histories because one group moved away and founded several independent Republics while another group remained in the Cape while also fighting for their language-rights - and this language they shared was Afrikaans.

For a while people in the Transvaal and Orange-Free State Republics were independent and referred to themselves as "Boers' even though many weren't farmers. Many also referred to their language as die Taal or Boertaal. The Boers have always viewed themselves as different from the Afrikaners at the Cape. After they were defeated by the British, the Boers suddenly were no longer allowed to refer to themselves as Boers, but were forced to join the ethnic-identity of the Afrikaners of whom many had fought with the British and many of whom were given farms as a reward. These Afrikaners generally dominated in the Afrikaner-Broederbond and were very insistent on always suppressing the Boer identity and also the Boers' history.

One should of course first ask the HNP -- just a teensie-weensie group of geriatric pensioned-off apartheid-era government officials in Pretoria, really -- exactly who they mean when they refer to the 'Afrikaner people'.

Do they also include the entire Boer Nation in this statement -- people they have indeed NEVER represented and always actively shunned?

Apart from the ambiguous term 'Afrikaner' or 'Afrikander', there also existed the notion of a 'Boer' people. Dutch-Afrikaners generally acknowledged that they were of Boer descent, but it was usually the pastoral farmers in the interior who applied the term to themselves. Finally, there was the term 'Cape Dutch', but this was an English description rather than a self-concept. English-speakers tended to distinguish between the better educated and more 'civilized' Cape Dutch of the Western Cape or interior towns and the Boer people whom they considered ignorant, illiterate and almost beyond the pale.

The population of whites did not reach 1000 until about 100 years after the arrival of the first settlers. A small number of burghers began to drift away from the close control of the company and into Africa. These were the first so called trekboers who were completely independent of all official control, self-sufficient and very isolated. They persued a semi-nomadic pastoralist lifestyle, not very different to the way the Khoikhoi lived. As they became more settled mud cottages were built, but it could weeks of travel to the next tiny European settlement. The lifestyle and isolation resulted in a courageous group, but also very backward people whose only source of information was the bible. The trekboers were completely cut off from the developments in Europe like the French Revolution.

From: Aab Tourism.

Dutch farmers expand north and east from Cape Town after the 1680s. The Dutch East India Company, which ran Cape Town as a resupply base for their ships on the long voyages to the spice islands in southeast Asia, was not interested in expansion in Africa. These settlers, called trekboers ("nomad-farmers"), lived under no government control, much like the Portuguese bandeitantes of Brazil or the American frontiersmen like Daniel Boone. The trekboers lived in small villages or isolated farms, raising large herds of cattle--in this way their way of life had many similarities with the Bantu peoples of South Africa.

The Boers had a tradition of trekking. Boer society was born on the frontiers of white settlement and on the outskirts of civilization. As members of a frontier society they always had a hinterland, open spaces to conquer, territory to occupy. Their ancestors had moved away from the limiting confines of Cape society to settle the eastern frontier. In time this location became too restricted, and individuals and families moved north across the Orange River.

Definitions of Boer, Afrikaner, South African Colonists, Settlers and Coloureds:

The authoritative Canadian journalist-author Noel Mostert, (who is a descendant of Afrikaners Huguenots who in 1947 had emigrated to Canada; and now lives in Morocco), draws a very clear distinction especially between Afrikaners and Boers, writing on page 1292 in " Frontiers", his comprehensive history of the Xhosa nation:

Afrikaner: "The word 'Afrikaner' has a long history among Dutch-speaking colonists, but its modern nationalistic associations are comparatively recent, starting around the 1870s but principally early in this century.

Boer: "The word Boer is used to describe Dutch-speaking colonists both early and later in the nineteenth century, for the Cape Colony as well as Natal, the Orange Free State and Transvaal;. Trekboer, Voortrekker: "Trekboer" is used to describe the semi-nomadic Boers who moved outwards from the Cape of Good Hope into the interior between the end of the seventeenth century and around the end of the eighteenth.

" Voortrekker or " Trekker" is applied to those who moved in more or less mass emigration from the Cape frontier to the north at the end of the 1830s.

Colonist: "The word ' colonist ' has been used to describe all white colonials, but I have found it necessary to make some distinction between the (two varieties of Afrikaans-)Dutch speakers in South Africa, as well as English speakers.

The term ' settler ' (in the South African connotation) therefore has been applied exclusively to English-speakers (in Mostert's book).

Coloured: A catch-all apartheid-era term used to officially register South Africa's large variety of creole peoples, including the Khoi-San descendants living in the Western and Eastern Cape; the millions of Afrikaans-speakers of Afrikaner-Malay-Khoi-San descent (such as the Boesaks); also English-speakers of Zulu-Scottish descent (the Dunns of KwaZulu-Natal);

From post at Crime Busters of South Africa.

IN RECENT YEARS, historians have commented that Afrikaners were far from being one people. It is misleading, they say, to speak of ‘the Afrikaner’ or the ‘volk’ as if white, Afrikaans-speaking people were one, uniform mass. For at least 150 years, Dutch-speaking South Africans were divided, scattered and unaware of national unity. It was only when a systematic effort was made that national consciousness became widespread. In the nineteenth century, for example, settled Boers and townspeople in the Western Cape, differed greatly from the Voortrekkers (who themselves were not a united movement — many parties had split up to trek in different directions). Even in the Boer republics there were divisions between rich and poor, landowners and bywoners.

By the 1770s the Dutch nomads have penetrated as far as Graaff-Reinet, some 400 miles northeast of Cape Town. They become known as Trekboers (Dutch for 'wandering farmers'), a word subsequently often shortened to Boers. When they go on raids, to rustle the cattle of the tribes, the Trekboers form themselves into armed bands of mounted gunmen known as commandos.

At first the commandos make short work of tribal opposition. Between 1785 and 1795 they kill some 2500 San men and women and take another 700, mainly children, into slavery. But by this time the Boers, approaching more fertile territory near the Great Fish River, are meeting stronger opposition from Bantu-speaking Xhosa tribes.

A series of frontier wars between Boers and Xhosa begins in 1779. The Boers appeal to Cape Town but get little help. In their frustration, in 1795, they declare Graaff-Reinet an independent Boer republic.

The Boers are by now, both in their own estimation and in reality, a people different from the Dutch at the Cape. They call themselves Afrikaners [1], proudly emphasizing their birth in Africa. Their language, Afrikaans, already differs from Dutch. Their fierce independence is accompanied by an equally uncompromising variety of Calvinism. But in the very first year of their new republic a wider conflict intervenes. In 1795 the British seize Cape Town.

1. As in considering themselves African. The term Afrikaner was yet to be propagated in a political context started by the Cape Dutch.

But splits have always existed. The myth of the monolithic rock of Afrikaaner nationalism is just that: a myth. Descendents of the early sixteenth century Dutch settlers mixed with Huguenot, German and - let's be frank - the blood of dark skinned people - are as divided as any other group. The Cape Afrikaaners by virtue of their deep-dug roots in the gracious wine valleys of the Cape, have long enjoyed more wealth, culture and comfort than their poorer, rougher brothers descended from the Trekboers of the last century. Though they sided with the Trekboers against the British in the Boer War [1] and though Cape Afrikaaners have created hardy institutions to help the Poor Whites of the north-east, on the whole people of the Cape tend to look down on the Ferreira and the van der Merwer families of the Trekboers.

1. This is not quite correct as numerous Western Cape Afrikaners in fact fought with the British & against the Boers. Update: this was noted in print in Chapter fourteen of Boerestaat by pro Boer independence icon Robert van Tonder. The Cape Dutch were historically pro British & many in fact assisted the British with their atrocities & helped to round up Boer civilians into the British run concentration camps which recent numbers suggest killed off at least 60% of the total Boer child population.

Paul Kruger did not like people from the Cape - he felt they were subjugated by the British, so he encouraged people from the Netherlands to work in the Transvaal as a way to strengthen Boer independence.

Another point of grotesque confusion that we need to clear up, is that Boers are not "Afrikaners". None of your co-workers seem to have any understanding of this. All Boers are aware of the systematic subterfuge and distortion of "identity" that has been the result of the makings of the Broederbond and the National Party, based upon the then image of the British imperialist gentleman. This artificial identity was meant to wean away the Boers from their strong identify, from their history, from their nationalism, and thus weaken them.

The ISS should take note that the Boers never wanted a singular state with a single government ruling all the peoples of the sub-continent. The Boer Republics were taken from them with violent force. Even the terms of the peace treaty of Vereeniging in 1902 stated unambiguously to see to the restoration of Boer independence as a people before any political rights be bestowed upon the African peoples.

But we Boers are not colonialists or imperialists. The Boers never engaged in any "Christianizing" mission work to convert the heathens as did the American, Scottish and German missionaries. Our forebears wisely thought it best not to interfere with those values and views that other people cherish and hold sacred. The Boers made no bones about the fact that they were not great supporters of the capitalist system, as it was seen to be nothing else than another form of Imperialism. No wonder then that the Irish, the Russians, and so many others from Europe joined in the defense of our freedom. The Boers never sought to "civilize" and "develop" other racial and cultural groups from a position of cultural superiority. The Afrikaners tried it for many ears, and failed dismally in more than one way.

Take note that the Boers today have good reason to be immensely frustrated and angered. We have not only lost all forms of the partial self-determination we previously enjoyed, through the treacherous dealings of Afrikaner politicians, but have lost virtually all rights to make a decent living and bringing up our children with good values and good learning. All indications are that the marginalizing of the Boer will only get worse under the present regime, which is regarded by us as illegitimate.

Even Afrikaners hostile to the Boer aspirations, like the well-known historian Prof. H. Gilliomee, has stated that De Klerk shamelessly broke his promises and public commitment to counsel with his people about changes to be introduced into South Africa and it is openly admitted that during the vote of 1994 the count of the vote was stopped midway and the ANC declared the winner, and that De Klerk's National Party was given extra percentage of the vote for allowing the ANC to be declared the winner.

The word "Afrikaanse" is pedantic and a bit of word play with punch so as to make a point. Basically it means Afrikaans-speaking -- A Hollander would say it's really an Afrikaans thing, and therefore difficult to explain. The "e" adds that little something and hints at their close friends, the Cape coloureds who invariably use this extra "e" in their speech. For instance they regularly say "onse mense" for "our people", and it would appear that they are in fact being taught this strange form of Afrikaans in their schools -- something that is now being brought into more established "White" schools to my, and others', distress.

The two of us (Oom Robert and myself) had many discussions on this topic, on which we saw eye to eye. He used to use the term "Cape Dutch" for the Cape variety of White Afrikaans-speakers, a term most accurately describing them, and historically sound, being a term which the British themselves coined and used for all Afrikaans-speaking White People, especially in the Cape. I normally say that they are Afrikaans-speaking Englishmen (or women, as the case may be), but as I've previously mentioned, or hinted at, this sickness has spread to beyond the Vaal River.

Too many people -- particularly so-called "rightwing" politicians -- have tried (and failed) to combine all White Afrikaans-speaking South Africans into a homogenous group forgetting that the gulf is far too wide and deep to accomplish this sort of social engineering in a short space of time. We have to remember that the Anglo war against the Boer Nation happened only 100 years ago and lots of suffering occurred in those hundred years. And where it counts -- in the hearts of the true-blue Boer -- this suffering will be remembered for quite a while longer. As for Nationhood, we have to acknowledge that language does not make a Nation, but rather soil, a shared history, and blood.

The "Afrikaner" never developed into a nation, never had a land of his own, never had to defend himself in a war, never had a flag of his own, and actually has no history to speak of. When it suits him, he tends to ride high on the history and experiences of the Boer Nation.

I am of the considered opinion that whereas the Boer Nation can (even still today) do without the "Afrikaanse", the "Afrikaanse" cannot do without the Boer Nation and his land, minerals, economic activity, his energy and drive, etc., etc. Decades ago when I used to debate on the subject of secession from the greater South Africa and re-establishing the Boer Republics, the politically dimwitted would ask me how Transvaal (never say THE Transvaal!) could "go it alone" without seaports. Of course, they forget that Johannesburg is officially considered a port, and the SA Navy has its HQ in Pretoria. Also, these dimwits have never heard of aircraft, and the rest of the White Man's magic, that would make it child's play to not have a sea port. Also, who said anything about there being no co-operation between the Boer Republics and Cape Colony and Kwa Zulu (Natal), and, of course, Mozambique, They also forget that many other flourishing nations have land-locked countries -- for instance the Swiss, who have very little in the way of minerals and other commodities. But they do have White Man's brains! So, as I used to say to them, it is rather a case of whether the Cape Colony and Kwa Zulu (Natal) would remain viable for long if Transvaal and Orange Free State were to be re-established as sovereign countries; especially if no trade were to take place between these entities. The Cape Province with its wine, fruit and wheat culture; Kwa Zulu (Natal) with its sugar cane and a few bananas -- even with their ports, both would have to expand the rotten thing called tourism so as to survive. Transvaal alone has much more of everything than all the others combined! And you have to see the maize (corn to Americans) farms of Orange Free State -- it makes Oklahoma corn look like a child's sand pit.

Having said all this, though, I have to repeat again that language is not everything. Race is everything! However, I would never be entirely trusting of the so-called "Afrikaanse". They are too easily swayed, and the little history they do have speaks to me more of deceitfulness than pride and honour and dependence.

As a nation, the Boer Nation is admittedly complicated, but that is not a problem at all. It would only become a problem if and when there are no more Boers left to understand the complications.

As the first anti-colonialist drive began under the Dutch colony in the Cape, so did the most zealous "Boers" (the word originally means a farmer) begin to move away from the Cape in search of freedom and independence. These people were continually moving further and further away from the Cape and eventually met the first great Nguni migrations - the Xhosa people - who were moving South at the same time. This meeting took place in what is today known as the Eastern Cape.

As the two great migrations - Boer and Xhosa - met at the Fish River in the Eastern Cape, so did these two migrations stop for a while. In the interim however, the British Empire occupied the Cape Colony, and the Boers, who had sacrificed so much to escape their White colonial Dutch masters, once again found themselves under White British rule.

It was from the Eastern Cape that the first of what has become known as the Great Trek movements started. This Great Trek was in fact the migration of the Boer people away from the British Empire - proof yet again that the first anti-colonial movement in Africa was a Boer movement - an indigenous people trying to escape colonization by a European power.

The main cause of the Great Trek was the British colonial masters trying to colonize the Boers of the Cape frontiers. There were other smaller factors, but it can be said in summation that it was the Boers' desire to be free and independent of colonial rule which caused the Great Trek.

It is of crucial importance to note that whenever reference is made to the Great Trek, it is always said that the "Boers" took part in the Great Trek. There was no "Afrikaner" Great Trek, and there were no "Afrikaner" Great Trek Leaders, just Boer Great Trek Leaders. This is an indication that at this stage already the Boers had developed an identify of their own, as distinct from the Cape Dutch and English settlers of the Cape.

The independence minded Boers packed up their belongings and headed north - into what today is known as the Orange Free State, Transvaal and into Natal. Although there were scattered Nguni speaking peoples living in these territories, particularly in Natal where the Zulus held sway, large parts of these territories were vacant, having been decimated by the Difaquane, or inter tribal wars said to have originated with the Zulu King Shaka.

The first Boer movement into Natal attempted to negotiate land from the Zulu King, Dingaan. These attempts to trade land with the Zulu ended in failure and the Boer leaders were murdered.

The Zulu army was however defeated at a Battle which became known as the Battle of Blood River in 1838, and the first Boer Republic was established in Natal shortly thereafter.

The Battle of Blood River is regarded by Boers as the symbolic birth of their nationhood, although of course in reality the Boers had established an own identity long before this event. The reason why the Boers however regard the battle as being the symbolic birth of their nation was that they felt that their victory against overwhelming odds was divinely inspired. The Boer Trekkers had taken an oath to the Christian God that if they were given the victory that day they would hold the day as holy - and the Boers have held this tradition ever since.

The Boers then renewed negotiations with the Zulus, and their new King, Mpande, agreed to let the Boers have territory in Natal. It can be seen that from this early period then, the Boers were recognized by other peoples in Southern Africa as an independent nation and not part of the colonial governments - in other words already then they were recognized as indigenous, rather as merely an extension of the European colonies, then the Zulus for example would not have settled with them but rather with the European powers directly.

However, the British Empire still wished to colonize the Boers, and in 1843 annexed Natal. After a few skirmishes with the British, the Boers once again packed up their belongings and left Natal, leaving behind only a small number in Northern Natal.

The Boers in Natal then went and joined their fellow Boers in the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, which had in the meantime been put on the road to nationhood as well. Although there were other indigenous peoples living in parts of these territories, the Boers were accepted by them as another indigenous people and it is worthwhile to note that very few major clashes took place between the Boers and the Black peoples of this time. When such clashes did take place, they were usually over matters such as stock or grazing - at a time very normal matters for indigenous peoples to argue over.

Finally in 1852 the British Empire itself was forced to recognize Boer independence at the Sand River Convention. This year marks the firm establishment of the Boers as an indigenous people in international law. At this early stage not one, but two independent Boer Republics were recognized by the whole world, and were granted contractual capacity as with any other independent indigenous nation. The mere fact that the British colonial masters accepted this state of affairs shows that even the European powers recognized that this independent and free nation had sprung from Africa and not from some colonial experiment.

The Boers had in the interim developed their own culture and language - in fact the language spoken by the Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State Republics is one of the newest languages on earth. It is a language unlike any European language, and many of its words have origins in Africa - and not in any European language. Linguistically then, the language of the Boers was created in Africa - yet another indication that the Boers and their culture are indigenous to Africa, and not a colonial import.

It is also of crucial importance to note that when any mention is made of the independent republics, they are always called "Boer Republics" - and never "Afrikaner Republics". This is of course confirmation that the Boers had a separate identity from the Cape Dutch settlers. This separate identity was confirmed in International Law by the Sand River Convention of 1852.

Although the Boers thought they had at last found freedom from colonialism, they were wrong. The British Empire launched two more attempts to recolonize them - the second time being successful.

The first attempt to colonize the Boers came with the occupation of the Transvaal by a small British contingent in 1877. This event led directly to the First Anglo-Boer War (note again that it is called an "Anglo-Boer War" and not an "Anglo-Afrikaner War") and by 1881 the British forces had been defeated by the Boers to such an extent that the British were forced to once again recognize the independence of the Boer Republics. This recognition was given formal effect by the London Convention of 1884 - the second time that the Boers had been recognized as an independent and indigenous people in international law.

It is a sobering thought for people in the 1990's to realize that the very first liberation war against colonial masters was in fact fought by the White Boers against the White British colonialist - preceding any Black liberation war by many decades. It can be argued that only an indigenous people can wage a liberation war, and that this therefore shows once again that the Boers had by this stage firmly established themselves as an indigenous people of Africa.

The second attempt by the British to colonize the Boers resulted in the Second Anglo-Boer War of 1889 - 1902 (once again note that it is called the Anglo-Boer war and not the Anglo-Afrikaner war). This war resulted in the development by the Boers of the guerrilla warfare method, since used by many liberation movements in all parts of the world. Although the Boers fought bravely against overwhelming odds, the British used a cruel & until then unheard measure of fighting - they rounded up as many Boer women and children as they could find and put them into concentration camps scattered around South Africa. In these camps, as a result of judicial executions, starvation, disease and ill treatment, some 27 000 Boer women and children died - some 20% of the total Boer population of the time.

Against such inhumane methods the Boers could not fight, and eventually the British succeeded in their dream of colonizing the entire Southern Africa in 1902, when the treaty of Vereeniging, ending the Second Anglo Boer War, was signed. Even in defeat, the Boers were recognized under international law.

The position of the Cape Dutch and English settlers during this conflict also goes to show that these people did not associate themselves with the Boers. Although a few Cape Dutch did take up arms and fight on the side of the Boers, (they became known as the "Cape rebels" for this reason - and they were severely punished if caught) the vast majority of the Cape Dutch and English settlers in the Cape and Natal supported the British colonization of Southern Africa, which then also included today's Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia and territories even further north.

The treaty of Vereeniging therefore marks the subjugation of the Boers by White European colonial masters - a fate shared by countless other indigenous peoples while the British and other European empires still regarded Africa and other parts of the world as their personal possession. The Boers were however unique in that they were the only White indigenous people to be subjected in this way - a nation called the "White Tribe of Africa" by the British Broadcasting Corporation.

This town of 600, situated close to the geographic center of South Africa, was established in 1991, as a place where the soon-to-be outvoted Afrikaners, could rebuild a homeland or Boer volkstaat. Thirteen years on, despite bad press and the brunt of endless editorial cartoons, the town has endured. Earlier in the week, I met with prominent Boer nationalist Danie Theron in the South African capital Pretoria. I had contacted Danie curious to find out how the Boer were faring, ten years after apartheid had ended. Theron immediately took the opportunity to stress differences between Boer and Afrikaner, two words, which are often used interchangeably. In the world-view of the Boer, they alone made the Great Trek from the Cape in the 1830’s to establish independent Boer republics inland, whilst the Afrikaners stayed with the British and got rich. Then the Afrikaners supported the British; the Boer fought them during the Anglo-Boer war of 1899. And in 1994, the Afrikaner leaders betrayed the Boer by giving their land to black South Africans. Theron explained the Boer are deeply, conservatively religious and to survive, believe they need self-determination on land they can call their own.

5. Effects. Today, the numbers of the Boerevolk are at least 3 million less that it would have been, had the English not committed genocide on the Boerevolk. This robs our people of our right to self-determination in the new so-called democratic system. (In truth, democracy means government by the people and not government by the rabble as is presently the case in South Africa.") The holocaust, together with treason committed by Afrikaners (take note: not Boere) such as Jan Smuts and Louis Botha, forced the Boerevolk to sign the peace accord of Vereeniging which deprived our volk of its freedom. The alien and inferior British culture was forced onto our people. The various indigenous peoples of South Africa were insensitively bundled into one Union without giving a thought to their respective identities and right to self-determination. As in the case of the Boerevolk, the local black nations were effectively robbed of their freedom, which gave rise to the establishment of the ANC in 1912 (two years after the foundation of the Union) to struggle for black nationalism. The British system of apartheid, which they applied all over the world (for instance also in India, Australia and New-Zealand), had to be imported to control the mixed population. The first manifestation of this were signs reading "Europeans" and "Non-Europeans". No Boer ever regarded himself as a "European". Apartheid invoked racial friction and even racial hatred which has in no means abated to this very day, and the bitter irony is that the Boerevolk, who had not been in power since 1902 and who also suffered severely under apartheid in the sense that apartheid robbed them of their land and their work-ethics, are being blamed for apartheid today. England's pretence for the invasion was the rights of the foreign miners. Yet after the war, these very same miners were treated so badly by their English and Jewish bosses that they had to resort to general strikes in 1913 and 1922 (3 and 12 years after the establishment of the British ruled Union), during which many mine-workers were shot dead in the streets of Johannesburg by the British disposed Union government. So much for the rights of the foreign miners under English rule. The efficient and equitable republican system of government of the Boer Republics was replaced with the unworkable Westminster system of government, which led to endless misery and conflict.

It's a little-known part of history which started shortly after the end of the Anglo-Boer war in 1902, when the Boers were a defeated, poverty-stricken people who had been chased off their farms and whose towns had been destroyed by the British. They were dirt-poor and plunged into an unprecedented famine. Many had to flee to the cities to survive - places which were totally alien to them, places were only English was being spoken, places where their churches were being run by people who referred to themselves as Afrikaners.

Up to that point, the Boers had had a rich history and people still find old history books referring to this nation.

Recently a kind lady from Louisiana mailed me a copy of the "History of the Boers in South Africa," written in 1887 by a Canadian missionary with no political axe to grind: namely George McCall Theal.

It contains a map showing the territories which were being farmed by the Boers: from the Olifants/Limpopo rivers in the north to below the Orange River in the South (Colesburg).

It shows the names of the towns they had started wihich carried names such as Lydenburg, ( Place of Suffering) Vryheid, ( Place of Freedom) Pietermaritzburg, (named after the famous Voortrekker leader) Pilippolis and Bethulie, (named after their beloved Bible) and Potchefstroom, Rustenburg, Winburg and Bloemfontein... as they Trekked, the Boers named the map of South Africa, and many of its vegetation and wildlife as well.

All these Boer names are now being wiped off the map of South Africa in one fell swoop by the ANC-regime -- even though the Boers' official history had ended in 1902, long before the elitist-Afrikaners who ran the secret Afrikaner Broederbond cabal had started apartheid in 1948.

Yet this is not the first time that the Boers are facing such an ethnic cleansing campaign by a nation which is hell-bent to remove their very rights to exist in South Africa - this is actually already the third time in Boer history.

The first time the British tried to eradicate them from the map of South Africa with their vicious war and their even more vicious concentration camps where many tens of thousands of Boer women, children and elderly starved to death within just a few months.

After this first genocide to target the Boer nation, their descendants still managed to cling to their identity for at least another generation - until the secret cabal of wealthy Afrikaners called the Afrikaner Broederbond gaine hegemony -- and then took away their identity from about 1933 onwards.

When the Afrikaner Broederbond 's National Party won the elections, and took over the governance of South Africa from 1948 and launched the system of apartheid, the first thing they did was to completely rewrite the Boers' history.

Suddenly, all the accomplishments of the Boers became 'Afrikaner' accomplishments.

The Boer Women's Monument in Bloemfontein, erected in memory of the murdered Boer women and children who died in the British concentration camps written about so eloquently by British pro-Boer campaigner Emily Hobhouse, even became the Afrikaner Women's Monument - a truly vile insult to their memory. The Voortrekker Monument is described in terms which honour the memory of Afrikaners -- not the Boers who had actually undertaken the Great Trek.

Paul Kruger, their last president who was so sadly exiled to the shores of a lake in Switserland, became an "Afrikaner" president in the history book -- when he himself never referred to himself in any of his correspondence as anything except a Boer.

Thus all the history books were rewritten and Boers with too-long memories such as Robert van Tonder of the Boerestaat Party and Eugene Terre'Blanche (of the incorrectly-named) Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging were persecuted publicly by the regime, aided and abetted by the Afrikaans-language news media. Eugene's heart is in the right place: he bears the flag of the old Boer Republic and he refers to himself as a Boer. But his organisation's name bears witness to his ethnic confusion, caused by the Afrikaner Broederbond's rewriting of his own history.

And now the ANC is completing this vile task which was started by the Afrikaner Broederbond, and has even changed the names of their towns - and even of the historically--important "Voortrekker" streets which indicate the routes which the old Voortrekker Leaders such as Bezuidenhout had taken while battling their way to the north to get away from British hegemony in the Cape.

The old Voortrekker Streets all over South Africa are now being renamed to Chris Hani and Nelson Mandela streets and other names of people who, unlike the old Voortrekkers, actually have contributed absolutely nothing to the development of those streets whatsoever.

Thus the ANC is proving itself to be just as fascist in its nature as the old Afrikaner Broederbond they had replaced.

Both organisations are still hell-bent to wipe out all evidence of the Boer history.

They even continue to persecute and jail anyone who wants to rekindle Boer history such as Eugene Terre'Blanche and the Boeremag-15, undergoing their hyped-up, trumped-up treason trial in Pretoria High Court.

It's no coincidence that the public prosecutor of the Boeremag-21 just happens to be a well-known former Afrikaner Broederbonder, Paul Fick, who even admitted to being a Broederbonder when I interviewed him for the Sunday Times during the apartheid-era, when his organisation had launched plans for a new flag and wanted to test public opinion...

And if Robert van Tonder, riddled with cancer and suffering terribly, hadn't committed suicide a few years ago, they would have also had him in jail by now under trumped-up charges.

He and other Boers still proudly spoke the Taal, the language of their forebears - the language which now is being wiped off the map of South Africa.

Today, people no longer know who these Boers were - nobody knows about those dirt-poor Boer women who founded the garment workers' union, those famished women who had left their beloved farms and had gone to the cities to try and survive after their defeat in 1902.

This site is dedicated to the Boers of Southern Africa and their heritage. Editors: Malcolm and Debbie Wren email: devorah_1961@btopenworld.com God se Oog is vandag oor jou, Sy Hand is onder jou, Sy Gees en Vrede is binne jou, Sy Liefde en Engele is rondom jou - Wie aan jou raak, raak aan Sy oog-appel! God is watching over you today, His hand is under you, His Spirit and Peace are inside of you, His love and Angels are around you - Whoever touches you, touches the Apple of His Eye! boer or Boer In a nutshell the ²Dutch East India Company (VOC) colonized the Cape Province from 1652 onwards. They later provided free passage to the French Huguenots who were farmers. The VOC needed them to farm the land in South Africa for provisions for the sea route to India. This combination of Dutch and French farmers (boers) later trekked inland and the two Boer states were formed. The Boers then, are these farmers (boers) which became a nation, known throughout the world as Boers. see Who were the Boers? or Die Anderkant van die storie Definition: the word boer means farmer in Dutch. ² Please note that the Dutch GOVERNMENT did NOT colonise the Cape. This was done by a private company, the Dutch East India Company (VOC), which imported these indentured poor farmers from all of Northern Europe to the Cape, often against their will, were not ruled by the Dutch government. They were the first multinational company in the world and deemed themselves above government law. The Netherlands only had some 1-million residents in those days and the VOC ruled pretty much all of northern Europe through the wealth their trade had brought. It’s an important distinction – because this was a different colonial history from that of the British, whose GOVERNMENT indeed did start many colonies all over the world. The Dutch VOC-settlers did not have the protection of the State, whereas the British settlers did… Ever since colonialism they have been oppressed by many nations and are akin to the Jews in this regard. They have suffered genocide at the hands of the English and now they suffer it yet again with the ANC. The Boers are not colourist nor racist, because they are descendant from several nations and cultures in Europe and Africa and became a nation during the 1700s long before the famous 'Great Trek' of the 1800s. They have been branded unclean barbarians by the England, racist by the Western world, oppressors by the Black tribes of South Africa and nobody's by the Afrikaner and English speaking South Africans. The Boers are very proud of their heritage. They never liked the English and hated their Colonial laws, the birthing of Apartheid. When they called for the Great Trek it was to escape the oppressive English. However many settlers willingly remained under British rule and this is where the split came between the Afrikaners of the Cape Province and the TrekBoers. Many people today look at the white peoples of South Africa and think they are Afrikaners. However it is more complex than that. There are English speaking South Africans, Afrikaners and Boers. see 'Boers aggrieved'. Boers are passionately proud of who they are. Just like the Scotsman who you dare not call an Englishman! Boers are not Afrikaners nor are they English speaking. This website is dedicated to their heritage and their history, because they are targeted for genocide by the African National Congress, the Communistic One Ruling Party Government of South Africa. If you look at the 8 stages of genocide at www.genocidewatch.org/8stages.htm written by Dr Gregory Stanton of Genocide Watch - an international organisation raised up by the United Nations to monitor genocide around the world, you will see that the Boers are in the 5th stage of genocide, entering the 6th stage. See also http://www.genocidewatch.org/BoersSlain01.htm The ANC use the Boers as scapegoats for the previous mistakes of the archaic Apartheid regime and blame them for everything that goes awry within the governing of South Africa. If the ANC are criticised by the Western world's governments, they cry 'the Boers are to blame' or 'look at what we have inherited from these Wittes' or such like. The ANC are no better than the previous Dinosauric White ruling parties. And there is also another Mbeki inflicted genocide happening in South Africa simultaneously, namely AIDS. When the Boers are attacked on their farms they are raped and tortured incessantly with no recourse to medical attention or police intervention. They have few friends within the Black tribes because the ANC -through the Azapo/Apla and PAC groupings who run the Landless People's Campaigns - have succeeded through hate speech and hate rallies and hate radio to ostracize these peace loving people. [The ANC through "traditional healers" train the killers at so-called tribal schools for boys, just like the Muslim clerics who teach boys to become suicide killers.] And because the Boers are living in remote areas, they are a soft target for these military style murders. And those that do survive are subject to the deabilatating effects of AIDS as well! This website is a diary of the catastrophic events that have taken place within the Boer community of yester-year and into the 21st century. I hope I will do justice to these people whom God loves. For further information on other minorities who are also targeted within South Africa, go to www.icssag.com

Stop Boer Genocide.com.

I heard a statement today which reminded me of what classifies the distinction between Boers and Afrikaners. ‘The Afrikaners are not Boers and never will be, as they are from the group who went against the Boers when they (the Boers) wanted nothing to do with accepting the British rule at the time’, 1835-7. And this conflict was because of the imperial interference and how the British ill-treated the Black Africans. Afrikaners were pro-English and the Boers or trekboers were not. The Boers recognised the sell-out to the English and wanted nothing to do with it. This group of Afrikaners unfortunately married themselves to the English, who undoubtedly were the original perpetrators in the grotesque Apartheid system.

From: Deborah Wren of Stopboergenocide.com.

At the core of any nationalism lies the question of identity — how large groups of people from different social and regional backgrounds come to believe that they all belong to a common community. What was it, for example, that in the 1950s led most white, male Afrikaans-speaking workers, define themselves as Afrikaners first, as white South Africans second, and as workers only third — and act accordingly in political terms? Such was not always the case. From the 1910s through to the mid-1940s many, if not most, such individuals acted politically in terms of a self-definition which clearly saw themselves first as men, secondly as workers, thirdly as white South Africans and only fourthly as Afrikaners. Some may even have defined themselves as Transvalers or as Kaapenaars (Cape Dutch) before they saw themselves as Afrikaners.

Département de science politique Université du Québec à Montréal.

Note I have deliberately been using this dual name for the descendants of the original Dutch settlers. At the present time, the use of the name Boer (i.e. 'farmer') is regaining popularity among secessionist minded Northerners. The Boer/Afrikaner people is actually an increasingly unstable coalition of two closely related peoples, similar to Judah-Benjamin and Israel, living in the North and the South of the country.

Inside the group calling themselves Afrikaans a smaller group calls themselves Afrikaners and inside that an even smaller group who see themselves as Boere. These are not necessarily people with Right Wing political sentiments wearing khaki clothes and who want to shoot wildy at people who look different from him. They are people who share a common historic identity.

Johann Botha during doc on De La Rey song / video.

The current cultural difference between the Afrikaner & Boer can best be summarized with the following: the Afrikaner is neo colonial & tends to view all White Afrikaans speakers as being all part of the same group regardless of cultural distinctions while the Boers were & are anti-colonial / republican / independent oriented & view themselves as a distinct & separate entity from the greater White Afrikaans population as they are descended from the republican Boers & the Voortrekkers who were themselves descended from the frontier pastoralists & Trekboers who trekked away from the Western Cape centuries ago where the ancestors of those who would control the later emerging Afrikaner designation remained. This is an essential component to understanding the different outlooks within the greater White Afrikaans speaking population.